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SFS (Financial Aid) needs own place on home page (independent of Admissions)

Keep web site intuitive
-- if interested in Financial Aid, web site should help prospective/parent/student to continue their inquiry and information gathering
-- draw people to the Application links (or if arrive at Application page/form, provide options to get to other related information/areas of most relevance to a financial aid applicant)
-- good to build links to related areas (book store, language schools) depending on interest

Design for different users (parents different from students in how they use)

Need relevant search results

The large blue margins disappear and our viewers would see a full-screen. Much more room for content - it seems this may just be a feature of program/software as a number of other college sites have this margin. see the margin on www.bowdoin.edu

The link-tabs in the inside margin also disappear and are replaced with "boxes" that can be shifted, enlarged, reduced and link to the "content" areas below the line.

A good example of the full-screen and what all that extra content space can do is www.stanford.edu

This site has a nice feature on the home page "show expanded menus" right under the top-tabs. We may want a top-tab to be 'costs and aid' and the drop-down directs L/S, B/L, and first-yr apps get right to their interest.

This same site is also a good example of 'understanding and paying your bill". As you click a little deeper on this site - you reach a nice-looking "student financial services" site. Might be an outsourced site, like Overture http://fingate.stanford.edu/students/ great I-phone-like boxes.

We liked the video presentation right on the home page of www.princeton.edu We might have something like this on our fin/aid homepage

A nice feature would be ' the home page knows where you are clicking in from' and sets out front and center your area of interest. e.g. you've been in L/S reading about the School in Italy and when you click fin/aid homepage, it shows you L/S fin/aid interest items front and center. .If you've been in the traditional admissions area and click on Fin/aid home page, there's nothing about L/S fin/aid stuff but first-year app stuff is front and center, with videos, calendars, calculators, and examples of aid packages.